Blood is Thicker
by colorlesssea
Summary: Nik was her favorite brother. [Siblings AU.]


**This one-shot was written for the Klaroline Vacation Gift Exchange 2015 and originally posted on Archive of Our Own.**

 **Once again I'd like to thank klarolinedrabbles for betaing my one-shot.**

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 **Rated MA for sexual content, and mature themes.**

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 **Warnings for incest and underage/adult sex.**

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 **Disclaimer: I do not own TVD or any of the characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

Nik was her favorite brother.

She was the closest to Rebekah who was her elder by only a single year, and it was Kol who was always able to make her laugh, and Elijah she turned to when she wanted advice, but it was Nik she was eager to do all these things with. He preferred Elijah's company most of the time, he was as close to him as Caroline was to Rebekah, if not more, yet when he was with her the time they spent together was as worthy as all the hours Caroline spent with Kol and Rebekah.

He was playing with her dolls uncomplainingly and listened to her talk about everything she did during the day without showing any signs of boredom and instead seemed even interested to hear the stories of her adventures, at least as much an eleven-year-old brother could be when he heard his little sister four-year-old rambling about the birds that'd made a nest in the garden and how she gave food to all of them. He didn't laugh as easily as Kol did, but he was the only one able to make her smile when her dad and mom argued.

And he was drawing her. All time.

Nik's drawings were Caroline's favorite thing. They were always done so well. Each detail perfect so that Caroline could believe them to almost be real. Nik made them whenever she asked, as easily and naturally as it was for their mother to embroider pullovers for them. In his drawings she was a princess, she was wearing pretty pink dresses and there were knights who'd came to rescue her or fight for the honor of her hand.

The evenings, more often than not they'd sit before the fire of their fireplace as mommy and daddy were lying on the sofa, mom in dad's arms, and their siblings went on their occupations. Elijah reading every night a different book and occasionally sending an email to their older brother Finn, and Kol bothering Rebekah until she'd throw her toys on his face, Nik and Caroline would withdraw into a corner and he'd tell her stories as he drew for his sister.

"I wanna be a princess." It was a request that Caroline made quite often, but her brother still found ways to imagine new stories were in each of them Caroline was a princess.

That night he told her the story of a beautiful princess who had fallen in love with a prince who had found her in the forest and had saved her from a hunter sent by the evil queen, the prince told her that he was the son of a king to whom she had been promised when her father was still alive, and if she agreed to marry him the king would love and protect her, and they'd live happily in his kingdom. The princess gladly accepted, and they began the path to the foreign kingdom that the prince had told her so many tales of. During their long journey, it was not the king who protected her, however, but the prince who was sent to escort her, and it was he who loved her as much as the princess loved him back. But then when they finally reached the king's realm, the princess, bound by her promise had no choice but to marry the king.

"But that's not a fairy tale!" she protested vigorously, shaking her little head and wild blond curls.

He put down his pencils on his drawing half finished. "It's a fairy tale!" Nik insisted. "One that just doesn't end the way your other fairy tales do. "

"I want another," she ordered simply because she knew that her brother was going to comply.

He rolled his eyes but didn't protest. "What do you want?"

"A princess," Caroline replied automatically.

"No kidding," he drawled.

She pouted, eyes narrowing as she crossed her arms.

"Okay," he said, starting to draw almost immediately.

"And I want you to be my prince. "

Nik's hands instantly stopped all movement, he raised bulging eyes to his younger sister and laughed.

"What?" she asked, not understanding, blushing as her brother keep laughing almost hysterically. She felt stupid now. As silly as when she said that babies were brought by swans and Damon, Stefan's older brother, had laughed at her, soon joined by his friends.

"I can't be your prince, I can only be your brother. You understand?"

Caroline nodded sheepishly.

ooo

She didn't like thinking about it like a competition, but it was a competition. And she'd won it.

Because both Caroline and Rebekah had their brother's love and yet Nik had chosen her.

Their parents had decided to enroll Caroline and Rebekah in two different dances classes after the catastrophic outcome that having them in the same class and competing to be the best dancer of the year caused the first time. And events such as parties and dance contests in Mystic Falls being what they were, they had been poorly organized, as all events of the season. The sound of Carol Lockwood's lamentations when she saw the planning of the events still sounded in everyone's ears.

"Unable to plan even some small events," Esther had grumbled, "If we were in New York-"

"We are not in New York," Bill had sharply cut her.

The argument that followed wasn't unexpected for any of their children, but the intensity of it had been more of a surprise, so that neither of the two, Caroline and Rebekah, had dared protest when Esther came back announcing, as red as when she was jogging in the morning, that she would go to Rebekah's representation.

"You do that," said Bill without even looking at her, "I will go to my daughter's representation. Your sons will do as they want."

Caroline didn't miss the angry look that her mom had cast to her dad, nor the tears in Rebekah's beautiful eyes at Bill's harsh words. But none of this had kept her from asking Nik to come to her ballet.

Small and ten-years-old Caroline could say without shame that she was proud that her brother had chosen her instead Rebekah.

When the day came, Nik had been, as expected, the only one of her brother coming.

He sat in a chair away from his stepfather, still not forgetting his words to Rebekah. Still he was present at the representation and when Caroline won the second prize he went to her even before Bill could make a gesture towards his daughter. He took her in his arms, congratulated her and kissed her cheek.

She buried her head in his neck to not show him her tears and especially not to Elena that had her whole family gathered around her to congratulate her. Her little brother, her mother and father, all happy, without hassles... "What is it about, Carebear?" asked Nik.

"I lost," she said, trying and failing to keep from crying.

Nik wiped away her tears and then he said very seriously that she had no reason to be ashamed, she'd done her best and it was why even though she'd lost, she still won the second prize and not another.

"But Elena was better!" she whimpered.

"I've also lost some prizes too," he reminded her, "sometimes I didn't even get the second prize for my drawings. As Elijah always says: it is from errors that we learn more than with success."

She smiled at his imitation of their brother's voice.

"Though I do usually always win," he bragged jokingly. "Let's swing by the Grill, Mom's waiting for us there."

She managed to smile once there and even congratulated Rebekah without any bitterness for her victory.

She'd always be the first to Nik, he'd chosen her. And that was all that mattered.

A few years later Nik went to college and no matter what Caroline could say, his decision was final.

And suddenly she felt second best again.

ooo

She literally adored her little brother. She fed him with bottles when her parents authorized her to do so, and sang songs to him each night to help him sleep. Unlike Caroline that had inherited her mom's looks and none of her dad's, the baby was dark-haired and his eyes were the same color as her dad's.

At night, she wondered how her children would be if she one day married Matt or Stefan. She smiled, imagining a tiny little baby. Then she imagined what her and Nik's baby would look like.

She fell asleep imagining a baby with golden blond hair like his brother's.

ooo

Caroline decided she wouldn't go to say goodbye. She remained sitting on her bed and pouted like the rest of the family accompanied her brother to the airport. When they returned, Rebekah was as gloomy as Caroline, and her company was, therefore, much appreciated, at least she'd let her be and wouldn't try to cheer her up like Kol had tried to.

She missed Nik when she was playing with her siblings or her friends, he was the first person to whom Caroline wanted to announce a new, and more like habit than because she'd forgotten about it, she'd more than once ran to her brother's room to tell him some good news, pausing before his door when she recalled that Nik was no longer there.

But she never missed him as much as when she was sad or when she fell asleep and heard her parents arguing about returning to New York or stay in Mystic Falls. The cries echoed through the entire large mansion and prevented her from sleeping. More often than not Kol would sneak out to meet friends under Caroline's disapproving look and against Rebekah's advice to not go out at night without saying a word to their parents.

They were also arguing about a man called Steven, until one day there weren't arguing anymore. Her father packed his bags and left. And there was no one left to comfort Caroline except Rebekah who was inconsolable, and Kol who didn't know what to say or do to cheer up his mother and sisters, and finally gave up.

When Nik came back home over the break it was to him that she confided. She didn't cry. The time for tears had ended long ago, and she was tired and just wanted to be pulled tight in his arms.

He helped her to choose a disguise for Halloween and they went from house to house. When they came back Kol and Rebekah had transformed their manor into a haunted house and were playing pranks to Elijah.

Caroline found herself not thinking a lot about her father in the evening, and then not at all.

"Thank you for coming back, Nik," she said that night, yawning like her brother wrapped a blanket around her.

She dipped her hand in the candy bowl and inspected two of them as an excuse to look away from the screen where the horror movie she had insisted on watching broadcasted a particularly bloody scene.

"You should," he chuckled, "without me you'd never have amassed all these candies."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I was being serious!"

His laugh died when he took into account the grumpy expression on her face.

"You're welcome, Care," he said sincerely.

She looked down, not sure if she should tell him what was on her mind or not. "When you left I was thinking that maybe you wouldn't come back," she confessed.

He kissed her cheek and ruffled her blonde hair. "I will always be there for you when you will need me, little sister, I promise you."

Although his words were nonchalant she decided to firmly believe him.

ooo

Next to her Rebekah was reading a magazine while sipping her lemonade and rose only to greet Finn who had just arrived. Caroline did the same and warmly embraced her brother whom she saw only very rarely. When Esther had announced that this vacation would be a family vacation, she'd meant it, and Finn was no exception. So he came along as did everyone, bringing with him his young wife.

"Another one who wants to suck money out of our family," Rebekah spat disgustedly, looking over her sunglasses at the redhead who now greeted their mother and Caroline felt a sudden pity for the woman who was now taking the little Henrik in her arms and smiled awkwardly at her mothers-in-law.

Rebekah's animosity would be another thing that Sage would have to deal with in addition to Esther's who held a grudge against Sage for having "held Finn away from the family" too long and for not having invited her to their wedding, something for which Finn had accepted blame for but their mother persisted in putting on his wife's back.

"Nik," she called her brother, the name naturally sliding on her tongue even though she knew he was going by Klaus now.

Hearing her, he left the pool and went to her. She let her eyes raking his body length. It was overall thin but muscular, she found herself absorbed in the contemplation of chiseled muscles of his arms and his chest. As she went back up her eyes to his face, she noticed for the first time how kissable his full lipstick seemed.

She pushed the thought as quickly as it had come.

"What is it?" asked Klaus once he sat down next to her.

"What?" she asked suddenly, legitimately scared that he could have seen that something was off in the way she had looked at him.

He frowned, apparently confused by her reaction. "Well, what do you want?"

"Oh." Right. She was the one who called him in the first place. "Can you- Lotion me up, please?"

Klaus seemed confused by her strange demeanor but still he shrugged and went on, running his large hands all over her back and on her arms. She exhaled sharply at first, then finally leaned back against his back and closed her eyes as she imagined where else his hands could venture.

Flashes sprang up in her mind; his hands casting aside the fabric of her bikini top to switch his fingers on her nipples, lightly at first, then pinching; his tongue on her skin, leaving a hung between her breasts to her throat, his strong hands on her arms while kissing her with his sinful lips, slowly inserting his tongue into her mouth to caress hers; his hands passing over her thighs and detaching the two nodes holding her bikini bottom together until she was naked in front of him... Caroline's eyes slowly opened and she gasped.

"Care, what's wrong?" her brother looked curiously at her, frowning.

"I got a headache," she lied without worrying about how her excuse was weak.

Once in the shower with flowing cold water on her hot skin, she relativized frantically the thoughts she had toward her brother. It had nothing to do with him, or with them. She was only sexually frustrated because she didn't yet take the plunge with Matt even though she was dying to, mostly because of her insecurities over the feelings Caroline was sure Matt still had for Elena, and so she had therefore projected her fantasies on the nearest hot guy in the area, who happened to be inadvertently her brother. That was all it was.

When she ran her hand between her legs, she was determined to think about Matt but it was her fantasy of Klaus who made her come violently on her fingers as she breathed erratically.

Caroline didn't managed to meet her brother's gaze once without thinking back of that afternoon and feeling ashamed.

ooo

Caroline had expected her first time to be painful, and had been pleasantly surprised when she realized that it was actually not the case. There had been pain, but nothing as terrible as she'd imagined it to be. Now she even felt pleasure as she rode Matt's cock. She hadn't come. Not yet. But she had no doubt that it would happen eventually, soon enough.

She brought Matt's hands on her breasts, and quickened her rhythm, moaning with pleasure as she threw her head back and tightened around his hard cock. But nothing happened. No intense pleasure or explosion. Unintentionally Caroline's mind returned not for the first time to the fantasy she had had some months earlier. She was so wet then. Hot and bothered when she felt Klaus's hands on her back, touching her innocently, and she indeed came in the shower when she was pleasing herself, thinking of her brother.

She ran her finger to her clitoris as she imagined the ways Klaus would be fucking her. She imagined herself lying with one leg on his shoulder as he sank deeply into her, his lips kissing her where she wanted.

When she came upon him, she came strongly and hardly. And with her brother's name on his lips. "Nik," she cried as she imagined cyan eyes looking at her.

Matt looked as though he was too stunned to react at first, then suddenly he pulled out of her and stumbled on the other side of the bed, looking as if Caroline had grown a second head.

She'd have preferred that.

She'd have preferred anything rather than the horrified gaze he cast to her. The shocked and disgusted look on his Matt's face was disarming. They weren't so close before they decided to date, following his break-up with Elena, and even then he had no look of love or adoration for her like the ones he was still giving to Elena, nevertheless Matt did look at her with affection, more like he would look at a friend rather than a girlfriend but she would prefer that rather than the way he was now glaring at her, like if she was a monster. And she assumed she was.

Caroline picked up her dress and pulled it on, took her purse and her car keys and left the room without a backward glance. She was relieved that Vicki or worse Mrs. Donovan weren't here to see her walk of shame.

She didn't get the same luck after driving home.

Caroline had first thought the house empty, but once in her room she saw that Rebekah was already there, rummaging through Caroline's closet and swearing when she did not find what she was looking for.

Her sister threw another of Caroline's dress on her bed.

"You know where is that black dress that Mom offered you?" Rebekah asked, her head still buried in the closet. "Because I want to wear it for my date with Stefan, I have searched everywhere and-"

She paused when she saw her sister's state; her hair was messy and pointing in all directions and her mascara running down her wet cheeks.

"What the fuck happened?" She left her task immediately and asked a trembling Caroline to sit. "I thought you were with Matt? "Caroline nodded. "Has he done something to you?" This time Rebekah's voice was freezing cold as she contemplated the idea that their friend had hurt her. "Caroline," she insisted on having her answer. But Caroline couldn't give her an answer. How could she explain to her what had happened? She usually told everything to Rebekah, the good and the bad, the best and the worst, her shining and her embarrassing moments.

She was tempted to do it, to tell her everything about her thoughts on their brother and what had happened with Matt, but just to imagine the look on Rebekah's face was enough to convince her to not. Of course she would be horrified. How could she not? Caroline was disgusted with herself too. Because he was her brother. The same who had tucked her and told her bedtime stories when she was a child.

For her to thinks this way of him was so wrong and unhealthy. If only it had been only a physical attraction then Caroline could have handled it but the truth was that her desires were the result of intense feelings she had for her brother for a long ago and which resulted in a need for physical contact.

This was not right.

And surely something had to be off with her for having such thoughts for Nik.

Caroline was determined to never tell anyone about her feelings for her brother, not even Rebekah, regardless what her reaction would be. The mortification that would result of it would kill her.

What was everyone going think of her now? When Matt would tell Tyler what happened, who would tell Vicky, who would tell the whole freaking town. Then the girls would no longer want her as captain of their team, people would run away from her like the plague, and around the city everyone would throw glances of disgust at her. And her family ... What her family would say? It was their reaction that Caroline feared most. She might leave town if things became too suffocating and start over elsewhere, it would be difficult, but she could, but her family and her relationship with them would pursue her wherever she went.

As it turned out to be Matt was a better guy than Caroline had given him credit. He hadn't said anything to anyone, not even his best friend Tyler. However, he didn't speak more to her than to say "hello" and "how are you doing?", shifting awkwardly on two legs as if he didn't know what attitude to adopt in her presence and then would leave quickly, sometimes even before she had given a full answer.

Yet Rebekah's insistence on knowing what had happened only doubled. When she realized that she'd get nothing from Caroline, she began waiting for Matt at the end of each class to ask him questions. Until Caroline decided to lie, not willing to take the risk to trust Matt not to crack and tell the truth to Rebekah.

"I said someone else's name while we were...you know." That, at least, was the truth.

Rebekah's eyes widened and Caroline could tell she was holding back her laugh. _At least the situation's funny for one of us._

"Who's?"

She had anticipated the question and knew what the answer would be. "Tyler."

She chose him because she thought it would explain Matt's odd behavior. If she had said his best friend's name while they had sex then it was likely that he would have felt embarrassed and would have been embarrassed to be around her, the same way he was now that she had let slip her brother's name during their first time.

Rebekah burst into laughter.

ooo

For months she had made it her life's mission to avoid Klaus. Going to her father's every time Klaus came home to visit and pretending to have another call when he called her but now she was the one to chase him down till Chicago.

He didn't come for her seventeenth birthday, missing her birthday for the first time in her life. It wouldn't have been such a big deal since Caroline was the one who had given him the cold shoulder for months but she knew something must have happened because in a few months he'd cut off all contact with the family and had been kicked out of Harvard, the totality of his bank account has been liquidated and he had no longer any contact with anyone. For a terrible moment, Caroline had feared he was hurt or worse and it was relentless that she had harassed her mother, and then Elijah who had showed himself even less cooperative than their mother had been.

"He needs to be alone, although I'm sure he'll come around soon enough," was all that Elijah had consented to tell her when she asked to know at least how Klaus was.

In the end, it was Kol who had given her their brother's address. "I have a great feeling that I will regret this," he had said as he scrawled on a torn off piece of yellow paper.

So she found herself in Chicago before a seedy motel on a picturesque road. Caroline knocked on the door, shifting nervously as she took in her surroundings. She was on an almost deserted road where the cars were going so fast that she was sure none of them would stop if she asked, waiting at the door of the motel that her brother may not even be at anymore, with only a man slumped against his bike smoking a cigarette for company. As he leered at her she suddenly wished she had at least told someone where she was.

Caroline trembled slightly and began to knock on the door, much more insistently this time.

"What?" Nik grumbled as he opened the door of his room.

She took a long look at him. He was wearing a pair of sweats and had not shaved for days but judging by his wet hair and his white tank top sticking to his skin he had just taken a shower. She resisted the urge to move her hand through his unruly hair and smiled weakly at him.

He froze when he saw her standing there and didn't even tried to hug her, nor did he smile at her the way he used to. He blinked and asked her what she was doing here.

"I came to see you," Caroline began.

"I take it that you've reached your objective," he nodded, "you can go now."

She found herself reduced to silence and her brain, weary of both the traveling and her sleepless night, tried to process his disdainful words.

She crossed her arms and snorted bitterly.

"I've been looking for you everywhere, Nik, but you were nowhere to be found. You could've been dead! And you- You were... What are you doing here anyway? How could you be so selfish for not letting your family know that you were safe and sound?" She had been so saddened when she hadn't heard from him, and so was Henrik who could not understand why their brother was not visiting and kept asking if it was because of him. "Have you even wondered how Rebekah and I would feel? And Henrik-"

"Don't," Klaus warned her darkly.

She ignored him. "He kept asking for you. Our father already doesn't come around very often-"

"And so am I supposed to pay for your father's mistakes?" Caroline knew that none of her brothers had lived well Bill's treatment to Esther but to hear him speak with so much hatred towards her father still surprised her.

"Is it not enough that I had to pay for my mother's?" he shouted angrily, leaving Caroline to wonder how many drinks he's had tonight.

"I don't understand what you're talking about, Nik," she said, shaking her head.

His face hardened. "Please don't mock me, Caroline, I am not in the mood for that."

"Klaus, who is that?" asked a brunette in underwear whose wet hair indicated that she had taken a shower. Just like Nik.

Caroline scoffed. Because the situation was funny wasn't it? "Your family was worried about you and I've searched everywhere across the country for you, and actually you were doing nothing but fucking some slut," she exploded, anger and jealousy, along with the fatigue and anxiety she had felt for weeks mingling together. "I'm sincerely ashamed for you. You are not even worth the calories I burn talking to you."

The flash of sadness in his eyes was not lost on her, then his eyes sparkled angrily and Caroline sincerely thought that at this moment he hated her as much as she did.

"And I suppose you're the girlfriend, yeah?" mocked the girl.

"Hayley, that's my _sister_ , Caroline."

She found herself irrationally pained by the way he had said those words. As if the fact that she was his sister took away any possibilities for her to be something more. What she assumed was true. But only for him. He was more than a brother to her.

"You should leave."

For a moment Caroline thought her brother was talking to her and was about to tell him that he could go fuck himself because she would stay until she got the answers she had come looking for but she saw the woman nod and disappear, then reappear again, this time fully dressed. She kissed Klaus before leaving and Caroline looked away.

"What's happened to you Nik?" she asked, not angry but weary this time. "And what's this story about you paying for Mom's mistakes? "

He peered at her intently for a moment that seemed like an eternity, a dubious expression on his face that gradually disappeared. "You really don't know about it, do you?" Klaus began to laugh sorely. "And I thought that was why you were avoiding me because our mother had told you her secret before me..."

"You don't make sense, Nik," she sighed, preferring to focus on that rather than on the rest. If only she hadn't had such a twisted mind her brother might have confided in her. "What's this freaking thing that Mom did and why is it such a big deal to you?"

He opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it. "It's a long story," he blurted out.

"Well, I've got plenty of time." Caroline retorted stubbornly.

"You want a drink?" he asked, pouring a cheap alcohol drink for him.

She shook her head. "No, I'm good."

"You want to sit down?"

"No."

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have school tomorrow? The weekend's over," he remarked.

"I've been skipping school for a week now; been a bit busy looking for you."

She took the time to appreciate the guilt that appeared on his features. He deserved it.

"I never asked you to do that," he sighed and said seriously, "You have to go back to school. "

"Why?" she challenged him. "Because my education is too important for me to take risks with? How hypocritical coming from the guy who was kicked out of Harvard."

"It was without consequences," he waved her remonstrances away. She snorted but knew he was right. By now their mother had surely made a substantial donation to Harvard so that the accident, regardless what it was, would be forgotten and cleaned from Klaus's record. "It's different for you," he continued, swallowing his drink at once.

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. "And why's that? "

"Because, unlike me, you like school and studying, coming in every morning to your classroom, cheerleading and practicing with your friends, and then going to the Grill."

Klaus gazed at her, challenging her to say otherwise.

"There's nothing wrong with that!" she replied defensively.

Klaus drank another glass and Caroline refrained herself from telling him to stop. The more he drank, the more he would be inclined to talk.

"I was traveling," he spoke up bitterly, "I wanted to meet new people and learn new languages. But our mother wanted me to follow the same path as Elijah and Finn; graduating and then off to a prestigious university, then joining the family business."

"Is that not what you always wanted?" she looked at him quizzically, waiting for his reply. For years, he was more than pleased with his condition, or at least hadn't been complaining about it to her.

"I thought it was, at least most of the time. Our mother was happy, and so was Elijah, and the university was for the most part enjoyable. Even more-so when Kol joined me." The smile on Nik's face at Kol's mention disappeared as quickly as it came. He filled his glass again. "But then I discovered that Esther had an affair. She told me."

Her breath caught and she gasped. For a moment, she was speechless. Their mother had an affair. It should not have been surprising to her. Bill had been flighty during the years of their marriage, his affair with Steven had started before he left home after all. Esther might have sought comfort elsewhere as well.

"Well it's only fair," Caroline said slowly when she found her voice. "Why are you so anxious about it? My father wasn't faithful either."

And Klaus positively hated his stepfather for years now, long before the divorce. Why the new was so upsetting to him was beyond her.

He threw his head back as he laughed bitterly and sincerely to her. "I don't give a damn about Bill." The coldness of his words sent a chill over her body. "I was a kid when he married our mother, and just happy to see her happy, and especially that Mikael was no longer around. But then I had seen him for what he really was: an upstart divorced loser who had sought to take advantage of a battered woman and had only made her life worse with endless flings and his determination to remain in a town where she had no friends because he couldn't fucking take to be away from his lover. Finn was right for once, was he not? Since the beginning, he knew that Bill was a-"

She was then in front of him, hands on her hips and eyes glaring daggers at him, outraged that he had the guts to look straight into her eyes and still insult her father.

"How can you say that? We know nothing but their side of the story, we can't be sure of what really happened because we were not in their marriage we were kids- "

He nodded. "And as such, I can safely say one thing," his tone was casual at first but became contemptuous as he continued to speak, "Bill was a shitty father."

Caroline was going to say something but the arguments from his brother nailed her up, "I know that he lacked only rarely to tell us, his wife's children of the previous marriage, that we were not his children and that he was not our father. And he was no better with his biological children. When have you ever seen him show up for Henrik's chemo? Can you remember a single time?"

She knew it was a rhetorical question but she still tried to remember a single time when her father was there alongside Henrik or their families in their darkest times. Without results. As Caroline remembered the worst period of her life when at the age of thirteen she had thought losing her brother it was always her mother that she remembered having often spent her nights in the hospital on the cots that the nurses had set up for her, Klaus had temporarily left university back then to be with them, and Elijah had replaced Esther and Klaus at Henrik's bedside often. Even Finn had temporarily taken up residence in the family home. But Bill had came only a few times and never resolved to pass the door when he'd saw his son connected to all kinds of machines that helped him to breathe.

"No, of course not!" Klaus continued cynically. "Because as always he preferred to run into his lover's arms rather than face the difficulties. "

Every word felt like a slap because she could see the truth in them.

She blinked, speechless. If Klaus had always been contemptuous of her father, he never was vocal about it. And she was grateful now. Younger, she wouldn't have been able to bear such a show of hatred towards the father that she had always loved dearly. Hell, even now the truth to which her brother had confronted her hurt more than she'd have thought.

She sat on the bed, discomfited, then quivered when she felt Klaus's weight on the mattress.

"Your point? Because I don't see how all of this is relevant when it come's to Mom's affair, and more importantly to your sudden desire to abandon everything, so much so that you had to come and settle down in a trashy motel."

"It isn't Bill that our mother was cheating on but Mikael," he explained carefully. But it did absolutely nothing to enlighten Caroline. Klaus hated Mikael even more that he had never hated Bill. His next words clarified everything, "I am not his son."

Caroline's hand went to her mouth. From everything her brother had said that night, that information was the most unexpected. "So," she swallowed, her mouth dry and lost on what to say, "is that why you came here? You're seeking your father?"

"Sounds like a bad movie," he muttered sarcastically.

"Nik!"

"No, Caroline, I'm not here for that. I already went to his funeral in New York."

"What?"

She wondered if there was a moment when she would stop to be so surprised by the secrets revealed to her. Caroline supposed that no since every revelation were most unexpected one than the other.

"Cardiac arrest," he said without emotion, "that's what she told me. She felt guilty for hiding my biological father's identity from me and so she confessed the truth to me. A little too late I must say," he snarled.

For the first time that night she found herself judging her mother.

"Then why are you here?" she asked softly, half-whispering.

He cast a glance at her, then down to the ground.

"Is that not clear? This is my payback to Esther," he chuckled gloomily.

Caroline shook her head. He couldn't be serious now? A good, and cruel way, to get back at Esther for sure, given the fact that their mother loved to have her children with her as often as possible, especially since Bill had left, but by pursuing this path he was deciding to throw way too many things away, things that were dear to him, from his future in a prestigious university up to her and Rebekah who vowed him an unconditional love, including their little brother who had grown up in an already unstable household while through a serious illness that he overcame only after months of chemo because he wanted some kind of revenge on their mother? "And we're all collateral damage then, right? Nothing more important than your father and your unknown family who you obviously care about more than us."

She considered this time her jealousy quite justified. After everything they went through...

"As simple as that, huh? Except that it's not." He was on his feet then, running a hand through his hair disheveled already almost hysterically, and paced the room. He reached for the bottle but threw it against the wall violently, seeing that there wasn't any more alcohol. Caroline had ever seen one person having this kind of behavior, she still remembered this time she were going at Stefan's house and saw Damon taking cocaine. But Nik wouldn't...or would he? "Mikael always lashed out at me, every time something went wrong it was my fault and he made me pay accordingly. He was strict with everyone but me... I was the only child he hit. I understand why now. He knew that I was not his child."

"This won't solve anything, Nik."

"I know," he agreed.

"And mom was just as abused as you were, maybe more."

His whole body stiffened. "I know." Then he added, "But she did deny me the only chance I had to have a father, and now..."

He paused and Caroline closed her eyes. He would not come home.

ooo

"Want to see your gift?"

Caroline grinned lazily at Klaus. "The party in my honor was not the gift?"

The last thing she had expected when she came home was to find half of her high school actually partying in her house. Caroline had seen cars parked outside the mansion but hadn't reached to this conclusion, however. She had left with her father for a day, had filed Henrik and then returned. There was no way that anyone could organize a party so quickly, especially without her being aware of it.

Everything had made sense when she saw Klaus and Rebekah sitting in the living room.

Klaus might be the only person in the world to be faster than she was to organize a party.

No matter how much the party could be great, seeing her brother had buried the hatchet with their mother was a much better gift than anything he could have come up with.

Henrik would be so happy to see his favorite brother visiting.

"Open it," Klaus urged her, handing her a small black velvet box.

His sister took off the ribbon that surrounded the box and opened it. Her breath caught and she gasped when she saw the beautiful diamond bracelet that he had obtained for her as a late birthday present.

"It's beautiful," Caroline said in a whisper, stroking the beautiful jewelry with a thin finger.

Klaus grabbed her handful gently, then tied the two ends of the delicate bracelet together around it. She expected him to pull away, but he didn't. Instead, he let his fingers wander over her handful. His hand slowly up the length of her arm to her neck until he touched her face and then her lips with a slightly trembling hand. Her heart was beating so hard that Caroline felt like to be able to hear every erratic beat.

She tried to stabilize her breath as she waited for him to call the shots. She was sure of not being able to take it if he looked at her with the same expression that painted Matt's face. Yet she was still the only one to press her lips on his.

He kissed her back with an intensity she hadn't suspected. Klaus's tongue went on the seam of her lips and then immediately into her mouth once his sister gave him the tacit permission.

She felt her blood boil when he passed his hand on her ankle and went up sensually on the curve of her leg up to her knees. He pulled her astride him then and Caroline happily compiled, leaning into his arms and plunged her tongue in his mouth in her turn, slowly sucking on it, causing him to growl his approval. She moaned when she felt her brother caressing her buttocks and her hands moved of their own will on the length of his chest, stroking all the seams of his chest and then firmly fixed upon his collar, making sure to break their heated kiss only when she needed to breathe again.

Their eyes met as they struggled to catch their breath. She had imagined this moment so many times ... But her fantasies were nothing like the real thing. Something flashed in Klaus's greedy eyes and this time he was the one claiming her swollen lips. He let out a guttural moan in her warm mouth and then plastered his body against hers as if he wanted more than anything nothing to separate them. More than agree on this point Caroline broke their grip to catch the hem of his Henley and pulled it over his head, throwing the fabric aside just after. Caroline once again passed her hands on the newly exposed skin and placed small kisses on Nik's neck. He took one of her hands in his larger and they tied their fingers together as he kissed her tenderly. She felt overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment, she had time to think about these and when she did she imagined it to be awkward, and shameful, she had thought she would feel dirty and she was certain she would do it again later, but for the moment Caroline couldn't see what they were doing as something other than an act of love.

She shivered when he unzipped her dress and slowly slide it down her body until she was in nothing but black lace underwear before him. A smile played on her lips when she saw the way Klaus 's hungry blue orbs shined.

She arched wildly against him when his mouth ventured to her breast and rubbed herself against his groin when his tongue attacked one of her extremely sensitive nipple still locked beneath the thin layer of tissue of her bra.

Caroline suddenly brought back his lips to hers, wanting to feel his warmness against hers again. He held her closer they their kiss became slower, lips barely touching each other as their eyes met. She saw a myriad of different emotions in his eyes, one that she didn't dare to name of fear of what this would imply. She gasped when she felt his lips on her cheek and down her neck where he slowly sucked on her skin, causing her eyes to roll in her head.

One hand firmly held her head and the other her shoulder as he continued to ravage her skin with his tongue and lips.

She felt wetting when his fingers encircled one of her nipple and twisting it vigorously. Klaus must have feel it as well judging by his husky growl. His hand pushed aside her panties easy to dip two fingers inside her and she groaned and threw her head back as she rode her fingers, moaning with pleasure.

For a while it was difficult to do anything other than pushing her hips toward him, craving for more. Then she noticed the bulge in his pants and decided to give him a taste of his own medicine, she firmly grasped his hard member still stuck in his pants and began to massaging him vigorously. He sucked for air as he momentarily stopped all movement, moaning throaty as Caroline continued to roll her hips and rubbing her hand against his manhood.

"Nik," she gasped, breathing heavily.

"Yes?"

She smiled at his breathless voice, knowing that she was the solely responsible for it.

"I want you inside me," she confessed, blushing slightly at the boldness of her admission.

His stormy eyes grew darker and she had the distinct impression that lust was not the only cause.

Caroline's legs remained tightened around his waist as Klaus reversed their position. Her panties came sliding down her legs and then she was completely naked in front of him as he was staring hungrily at her.

He put one of her legs over his shoulder and kissed it excruciatingly slowly.

"Nik," she complained, aching for release.

She felt him smile against her thigh and rolled her eyes.

Deciding that two could play that game, Caroline let her hand wander on her breasts and on her belly and finally between her legs, stroking her clit, biting her lip in pleasure. Her skin was burning and she was close to come when Klaus grabbed her wrist before she could and replaced it with his mouth, causing all of her complaints to die in a moan.

Her back arched as she held Klaus's face firmly against her pussy, groaning of contentment when he soon added his fingers additionally to his mouth. She found herself even more aroused as she looked down to see Klaus eating her pussy, and her whole body trembled when he circled her clit with his lips and thrust another finger in it. Her head fell back against the pillows and Caroline's hands gripped the bedspread wildly, certain she would hurt Klaus if she continued to cling to him.

She cried out when his tongue slipped deeper into her and bucked her hips against his mouth, screaming his name one last time and came undone.

Blinking, she found herself momentarily drained of all energy. She kissed him back when Klaus crashed his mouth on hers and groaned when she tasted her own essence on his lips.

He undressed quickly, his movements urgently as his lips remained on hers, and soon he was naked in front of her and Caroline broke their kiss to take the time to look at the beautiful body in front of her, she had seen pieces of him before, but had never seen him completely naked and she felt as if she could just look at him for hours.

She wrapped her hand around his manhood and stroked him up and down, wondering if she was she was doing it right, judging by his moan she thought so but the little sexual experience she had in this area left her uncertain.

She hasn't fully recovered from her orgasm when he positioned his cock at her wet entry, then stopped, and she held her breath, wondering why he's refused to give them the release they were both in need.

"I'm on the pill" she assured him when the realization dawned on her.

His hard cock was shining with her arousal when he penetrated her inch by inch. Caroline wrapped her legs around his waist and immediately threw her head back, clinging to his shoulders. She was tense at first, adjusting to his large size, eyes closed like her brother hardened inside her.

"You are so tight," he groaned into her neck.

He was trying to get a grip on himself, she could tell, by the way his face was contorted in concentration to not moving in her yet.

She began to move her hips and Klaus moved along with her, coming out of her almost completely to enter her again in long deep thrusts. He quickened the pace, constantly changing their position and angle so that Caroline ended on top and rode him again as she had done with his fingers.

She squeezed around him each one of his thrusts, surrounding him like a vice, moaning when he was not completely in her and screaming when she took him entirely. He hammered in her again and again, his hands gripping her hips as he pushed strongly upwards as her breasts were shaking against his chest and face as she turned her hips relentlessly.

For a while they both slow down their pace and he grabbed her hair blond in his hands to bring her mouth to his. Caroline was already out of breath before Klaus once rearranged their position so that she was on her back with her legs draped over his shoulders while he hammered in her again, his cock touching her clitoris every time that he got in and out of her.

She laughed with pleasure and begged for more, and he conformed to her wishes, pumping faster and faster into her, one hand massaging her breasts and the other touching her clit. Her mouth was wide open as she cried out, telling him how good he felt in her, how she was close, how never felt as complete as when she was with him.

Klaus's eyes widened at her last admission, his eyes sparkling with interest. And joy?

He pumped in her, taking her over the edge faster with rapid movements that caused her to scream as an orgasm struck her.

Klaus continued to pump into her, still here, hammering his cock in her pussy spamming and tightening around him, prolonging his pleasure, until finally released his seed into her, grunting and sweating.

Caroline fell asleep in his arms that night.

And woke up alone.

ooo

He avoided her. In a pattern that was ironically reminiscent of hers when she was the one avoiding him after the unfortunate incident with Matt. Which forced Caroline to hunt him down all the way up the hill where Henrik's first race would take place several days later. Klaus was as much a perfectionist as she was, and he insisted that Henrik should train before the D-day, and Henrik who was idolizing him, was happy with anything that his big brother came with. This was not an ideal place to talk with him not only because of all the ears that could hear them talk about a private matter that she wanted above all to keep secret but also because Kol was around and Caroline was sure that she would never hear the end of it if he caught their conversation.

"Care!" Henrik shouted at the sight of her, moving from where Nik waited.

"Hey, Henrik." Caroline ruffled his hair, much to her little brother's displeasure.

"Care," he complained, trying to flatten his brown hair.

Caroline laughed and moved her gaze on the orange car where Henrik had glued stickers, taking great care not to make eye contact with her other brother. "It's a very nice car," she complimented him. Her brother nodded proudly. "What did you name it?"

"The Orange Bullet," he said arrogantly and returned to his stickers. Henrik squinted, focused, as he was sticking the big sticker of a black wolf on the right side of the car.

"Where's Kol?" she asked, keeping her eyes on her younger brother's car but directing her question to Klaus.

"He had a call to make," said Klaus, his voice steady and nonchalantly, and Caroline was not entirely sure if she was impressed, jealous or angry that her brother could appear too unaffected in a such convincing way.

Suddenly fed up, Caroline got up and asked him, without thinking twice, "Can you walk me to my car?"

Comprehension dawned on her brother's face and he nodded. "Hey, buddy," he said, kneeling up to Henrik, "I want you to stay here and wait, we will make the tests later." Their brother nodded absently and went back to his stickers.

They were silent for a moment as they walked until Caroline then asked her brother the question that tormented her since she woke up in an empty bed after their night together, "Do you regret it?"

"Of course I do." It was beyond her to understand how four little words could break a heart. "I'm sorry, Caroline. I took advantage of you. You had been drinking that night- "

"So did you," retorted Caroline.

He nodded dryly. "We'd both been drinking that night," he conceded, "but it doesn't change the fact that I feel guilty for that," he continued, still not looking at her in the eyes, with a sincerity that exasperated her. Caroline wondered if Klaus was going through the same unpleasant emotions she had felt when she had finally understood that the nature of her feelings for him wasn't those that a sister should have for her brother.

She bit her lip thoughtfully. The rational part of her told her not to pressure him, that he would come around after accepting his feelings for her but the other part of her that had long since accepted the truth about their relationship and was tired of waiting forced her to say something. "Nik ..." she began but stopped when she realized she didn't know what to say. In her mind, everything just sounded wrong, if she told him about her feelings for him and the way she had accepted it what his reaction would be? Would he be frightened to learn that what had been a drunk mistake for him was to her was an unforgettable night? More or less as if she told him that her feelings for him were in agreements with their actions? "It's not a big deal, really, and now we're going to forget that."

Except it was. It didn't matter that their feelings about their night together were not the same, that had happened, and now they couldn't simply pretend otherwise and erase it so easily.

She contorted her lips in a smile that she wanted jovial. For a brief moment, she thought seeing disappointment on his face but was persuaded it had been a simple projection of her hopes when he smiled and said, "That's good that we've settled it."

ooo

Caroline and Elijah organized the funeral because they were the only ones left to do it. Esther's reaction to the new that her son was death by the surgeon who had tried to save him was such that she had been temporarily checked into psychiatry. Finn was still at her bedside, as Rebekah was staying alongside Klaus who had disappeared shortly after he had learned the news. And the idea to hire a stranger who would plan everything of Henrik funeral and the last occasion that their family would have to say goodbye to the child who was gone too early was unbearable to her.

Caroline's chest ached, thinking of her brother's dead body and she began to write quickly in her notepad, organizing and reorganizing the funeral and the reception that would come after until her organization has reached perfection.

And then she no longer had anything to do.

And suddenly her mind was no longer occupied, and was leaving open to unpleasant thoughts and overwhelming feelings.

She broke down, literally and metaphorically.

She fell on the floor and cried all the tears of her body because Henrik had been such a sweet boy, who had lived so much and even won his fight against his illness only to die because of a stupid accident. How was that fair? Caroline cried until she couldn't, until her members went numb and she couldn't even breathe.

Dizzy, she brought a hand over her throat as if that could somehow help the air to go into her lungs more easily. She felt as if she was choking and screamed in the silence of her empty house until her vision was blurred and she vomited the lean breakfast lunch she took that morning.

She had showered and changed when she went to see her mother in the hospital where she would have preferred to never come again. She hugged Finn and then went to the bedside of an Esther still sleeping. "They gave her something to sleep in," Finn muttered and went to sit on a chair in the corner of the room.

When she got home everything was completely empty and silent, excluding the staff of their house that were cleaning hither and thither

There was noise in the hall and Caroline rushed to see nothing but suitcases placed at the door of their mansion.

"Caroline."

She jumped at Klaus's voice and a hand went to her chest. She was a bundle of nerves for days now and it was getting only worse. "Damn it, Nik, I nearly had a heart attack."

"It would be just my luck, right? To have another one of my sibling die because of me," he explained as if she did not know what he talked about, as if she had _forgotten_. If it was not for his breath reeking alcohol then she could have been happy to finally hear him speak about their brother's accident. "Are you drunk?" she asked Klaus without trying to hide the accusation in her voice, frankly fed up with his attitude. She knew he was going through a nightmare, but damn she was too. And so was their whole family. Yet none of them had handled this tragedy by getting drunk until passing out and having brawls in bars as he had done, as well as it was Kol who had eventually handled things better.

His only answer was a smile and Caroline found herself losing patience. "Are you leaving?" she asked, pointing the suitcases of a hand gesture.

"Yes," Klaus replied emotionlessly.

This only annoyed her more. Caroline barred his way, ignoring his warning look. "Why?" she asked, if only to get some emotion from him.

When she got no response, once again, she exploded into an angry tirade that left her breathless and only strengthened his resolve to leave. "You're just like my father!" she ultimately exploded with repulsion. "You leave when things become too hard, even when it's your fault."

It was a low blow, and seeing the raw pain shining in Klaus's eyes she almost regretted her words, but she couldn't take them back anyways. She wanted him to yell back and answer her back in kind if only to be sure that he was not the hollow shell that he seemed to have become but in the end Klaus didn't rose to the bait and Caroline wondered if she was happy or not.

She raged against herself on her ability to always find the worse thing to say when he took his bags and headed to his car.

"You can't leave like this, Nik!" Caroline yelled behind him. "Stop being a coward and-"

"It's all my fault!"

When he turned to her with such fury that his features were deformed Caroline was taken aback by the sheer hate painted on his face. It was only then that her frazzled brain recorded his words. The reply on her tongue died with his next words.

"I was with Henrik to help with that stupid race, he wanted to ride his car one more time so I decide to drive him to the hill...I had just been talking to him, and then I turned my head one fucking second and... " Klaus left the words pending but she could imagine easily enough; the image of Klaus's destroyed car was still alive in her mind. "Caroline, I killed our brother."

He was breathing heavily when he finished, and she found herself lost for words as sorrow took her all over again. She looked at him in disbelief. She couldn't lose another brother. Not again. And by the looks of things if Klaus was leaving then it would be a long time before Caroline would see him again.

She followed him with one purpose in mind: to make him stay. "You promised me, Nik! You had promised that you would always be there for me when I needed you."

His words were true then, when she had been nothing but a little girl and he had been nothing but her big brother, why that would be different now, when she needed him more than ever? "I need you, Nik. Please stay," she pleaded shamelessly.

His lips were on hers then, pressing furiously on her mouth while their tears were mixing together. Caroline deepened the kiss desperately; it was the first thing, the only thing, she felt since the accident that wasn't cold.

"Stay," she tried one last time, grabbing his hands in hers.

"Okay," he said softly.

ooo

The sun weighed heavily on her shoulders as she stood next to her mother who was so stunned by her medication that she didn't seem to be aware of her surroundings. The priest said a prayer for her brother and then asked if anyone wanted to speak. Caroline had prepared a eulogy, had written and rewritten every sentence and changed the words until she had been sure her brother's eulogy would be perfect, but yet when Elijah finished she found herself speechless and finally said nothing at all.

The day passed in a blur afterward. Caroline faced the pitying glances and politely replied to those who gave her their condolences and made sure that everything proceeded for the best in every detail.

At the end of the day, she found herself drained of all energy. Drained of all emotions. And wanting nothing but sleep and never wake up. Klaus was waiting on her bed, staring at the ceiling when she walked into her bedroom and slipped her heels off. She curled in his waiting arms, burying her face in his neck and waiting for the sleep to take over her.

"It will get better with time," she whispered to no one in particular. It had to. She couldn't imagine an alternative where things would not.

"I hope you're right," Klaus said cautiously. Caroline tensed slightly beside him; he refrained from telling her what he really thought about it to spare her feelings.

Her brother stroked her hair, a sweet gesture that reminded Caroline of another time where Nik had a habit of stroking her hair, telling her fairy tales where the good guys would always win and the bad guy would always die, a time when she believed firmly that bad things couldn't happen to good people, where everything was much easier.

ooo

Esther was suffering from a mental breakdown and before leaving, Elijah locked her up in the psychiatric service of the Mystic Falls hospital, ignoring Caroline's protests on the matter. Caroline watched helplessly as she realized that Finn wouldn't help her, he had a family now with his wife who had given birth to twins, and he couldn't give to their mother the constant care she needed. Kol left town promising to return soon but didn't set foot in town ever again, followed closely by Rebekah. And Caroline was left alone with Nik.

She asked him to stay and he reluctantly accepted.

Caroline wept in his arms after they said goodbye to Rebekah at the airport. It was not fair that she lost her family in addition to losing Henrik. They were supposed go through it together, were supposed to heal together but in the end they were all gone and her mother was interned in a hospital where Caroline could visit her only during visiting hours, and she and Klaus lived alone in that big _empty_ mansion.

"They will come around," Klaus assured her after having to listen to her lamentations, "They simply needs some space to heal, separately."

 _Do you?_ Caroline decided she wouldn't ask him nonetheless. Ignorance was bliss after all.

An answer would force her to act accordingly to it. His silence, she could decide about how she wanted to interpret it.

Caroline tried to act normally as she began to go to school and immersed herself in activities she used to love before, and she was afraid of not having interest in anymore, but in the end she came to appreciate them just as much. It was good to be surrounded by the joy and life, not death and sadness.

She never felt more alive than when she slipped into Klaus's bedroom. He had been careful not to go beyond the limits a brother-sister relationship after that kiss with Caroline and she wondered sometimes if he had completely forgotten about that, it was still not what stopped her.

His lips were warm and familiar against hers as she kissed him furiously. He broke the kiss first, pushing her on her back. Caroline tried to wrap her arms around his neck, but he stopped her before imprisoning her wrist in his hands.

"Caroline..." Klaus breathed, his mouth still close enough to hers so she could feel his hot breath on her lips. "Stop."

"What is it?" she gasped even though she knew very well what it was.

"It's not right," he muttered, "No matter what this is, it's not right. "

"Yes but it does feel good," she protested.

He didn't release her, still hadn't walked away from her, she took it as a good sign.

"You are devastated and upset," he began to point out, his eyes anxious and troubled, but mostly tempted. Caroline stopped him before he could say another word. "This is not about Henrik or Mom, Nik, it's been long since I felt that way," she confessed. "And I know you feel the same, I saw the way you looked at me."

When he replied nothing in return she took it as evidence that her mind wasn't playing tricks on her.

"It's not right," he reaffirmed.

His face was stern and she resolved to accept that although Klaus felt the same attraction he was still not ready to act on that. She squirmed under him to break his grip. Immediately his hands tightened on Caroline's wrists, strong enough to cause her to moan her discomfort.

The conflictual look on his face disappeared to be replaced with a reticent smile and his hands dug into her hair.

She looked at him questioningly, eyebrows arched.

"There's only the two of us now, we can decide what is good or not, we can heal together."

ooo

She thought they were trying to heal together and that they were happy together despite the strangeness of their relationship.

Until Klaus informed her wanting to leave the town and, therefore, her, and Caroline realized she had been wrong. For a very long time as it appeared.

"You can't just leave like that!" she protested vigorously.

"There's nothing here for me," he stated calmly, keeping a good distance away from her.

"That's not true," Caroline insisted stubbornly.

"That's not now, is it? Let's be serious here, Caroline, can you honestly imagine me living and growing old here?"

 _Yes._ She could sincerely do it. She could imagine them together, in that small town he hated so much, living a simple life she would love with all her heart. But he couldn't. If anything, that argument had proved it, like all the others that they had had the same subject. On that line of thought, she said, "What about me? Do you give up on us too?"

"No," he said, softer.

"Then why? We could live here, we could-"

He exhaled sharply. "Caroline," he said and the way he spoke to her reminded her of times when she was a child and he was slowly explaining things to her to make sure she understood them, "Surely you must know that we will never really be together." Whatever appeared on her face, he caused him to look at her incredulously, like if he was genuinely surprised that she even consider that. "We will never get married and have children, we will never even be able to be together in public."

She already knew all of that, had thought of it again and again, but still it hurt to hear him say those words. "I know Klaus, I'm not stupid." They both flinched at the sound the name on her tongue, he had always been Nik for her, at least until now. "Why do you even think that I would want to do all these things with you?" she quipped, hoping not to let him see how upset she actually was.

He seemed almost embarrassed with her question. "Forget it," he muttered, his cheeks turning red as he did his best to avoid eye contact with her.

"Come with me," Klaus abruptly offered, not for the first time.

She couldn't.

This house that Klaus saw as nothing but another of the family's property was where she had run through the corridors with Rebekah and Kol, as child she'd made her birthday parties outside to accommodate all guest and flaunt her family's wealth as Kol had recommended her to do to intimidate Elena when this one had said a nasty thing to Caroline, it was in this house that she had her very rare family times where they had been all together and happy, it was in her upstairs bedroom that she had excitedly told everything of her first kiss to Rebekah when she was twelve, it was here that she saw Henrik for the first time when her parents had bought back a small bundle once coming home from hospital.

It was here that Klaus, long ago Nik, had once upon a time painted for her and told her beautiful stories.

This town was the one in which she had grown up, the one that she always knew and loved, all her friends who had turned out to be somewhere more faithful than her family during the worst time of her life were here; Mystic Falls was her home. And she was supposed to leave her home for what? For a family who gave up on her and a relationship where Klaus didn't even believe they could one day be together.

"Or don't," he added, realizing that her silence was an answer, "but I won't stay here."

Caroline looked at him and raised her chin defiantly. "Then leave."

ooo

It was easy to love Tyler because their relationship was easy.

She didn't hate herself for loving him, was not disgusted with herself at night while falling asleep next to him after having sex with him, she could smile sincerely and carefree because there was nothing wrong with sleeping with her boyfriend, she could hold his hand without having to feign an alleged lack of romantic feelings and kiss him on the lips publicly.

He was her boyfriend from high school. And they had been friends for a long time. And knew each other for even longer. They had grown closer when Henrik died and he had been the only one here for her with Rebekah being living with Kol who had unofficially decide not to come back to visit, and Klaus... Her heart sank when she thought of him. How many times had she hesitated to join him no matter where he was, because he was the only one who could have comforted her when she had been atrophied of all feelings aside sadness? But in the end she hadn't. She had asked him to stay, begged him to stay and he had chosen to not. He had given her an ultimatum instead. And for that Caroline didn't think she would ever be able to forgive him. To break the promise he had made to her.

So she had turned to Tyler. Who was going through something very similar when his father had died and they had been there to comfort each other when no one was.

It was natural for them to decide to date after their first kiss as it was now to marry him after dating for four years.

She had put her life on hold too long for Klaus, this commitment with the man of her life was the thing she needed.

"It's good to see you, Care," Rebekah laughed, hugging her as Caroline greeted her at the airport. "I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too," Caroline breathed in her sister's hair. "Things have not been the same without you."

She had just not been fully aware of how she was missing Rebekah's company. She had been accustomed to her absence, she had to, when she had realized that Rebekah would remain firm on her decision to leave when she could no longer take to remain in a town where there were so many bad memories, and Caroline had decided that she would not leave the only home she had ever known.

"You look so good," she complimented her sister, looking at Rebekah appreciatively, from her blonde curly hair down to her Louboutin shoes, noting her rosy cheeks and her shining eyes. "San Francisco is good to you."

"Yes," agreed Rebekah, smiling. "As Mystic Falls is good for you."

"Mom is doing well," Rebekah told her that afternoon when they were on the carpet of Rebekah's hotel room who had insisted to go to the hotel rather than stay in her old bedroom in what was now Caroline's mansion, and were talking about everything and nothing, "better than that actually, she returned into businesses and tripled the earnings of our companies."

"I'm happy."

Caroline lowered her head and looked into her glass of wine, wishing she could dive in it. Many times she had contemplated the idea of visiting her mother but had decided against it.

"She understands, you know," her sister spoke up, like if she had read her thoughts, "and so do I. You have a life here and we don't expect you to leave it, but a small visit from time to time would be nice."

She gazed doubtfully at her sister, knowing that assuming Rebekah was actually thinking that, the chances that Esther would not try to convince her to stay and were highly unlikely.

It had been in order to make of this marriage the marriage that Caroline always dreamed of that Rebekah came back in town. But when Caroline thought of the wedding of her dreams all she could see were drawings of her as a princess in a beautiful wedding dress she had asked her brother to draw her once, and while she had always been at the arm of an imaginary prince in these drawings, all she could picture was Klaus alongside her.

But she was well aware of the impossibility it, not only because Nik was not there for her but in Chicago, currently directing the firm that Esther had opened there, but mainly because they could never get married, it was illegal for a brother and sister to marry, for the sole reason that it was wrong.

Caroline clenched her eyes tightly to keep from crying. She wouldn't cry for a man who didn't want her on her wedding day.

ooo

"Oh my God!" Rebekah's unusually happy voice came up to Caroline who was staring at her reflection in the mirror.

Her breath caught in her throat and her head turned toward the door when she heard her next words, "Nik I thought you wouldn't come!"

Klaus walked in and after having recovered from their surprise Elena and Bonnie greeted him. He warmly greeted them back but kept his eyes locked with hers.

"What are you doing here?" Caroline asked calmly as possible despite her erratic breathing once they were left alone.

She squeezed her arms tightly over her chest, as if to protect herself from an attack to come. She could clearly remember how it was to be with him again, to love and be loved in return, but she felt like if it was someone else's memories now.

When he finally replied she did almost wishe he hadn't - almost, but not totally - because his answer turned her world upside down.

"What?" Her voice was trembling with anger barely contained.

"Don't marry him." Klaus repeated, his eyes serious as he studied her reaction to his statement. "Come with me." he proposed when she said nothing. "I.." He ducked his head, running his tongue over his lip and his hand through his hair but when he turned back to her his face was determined. "I'm in love with you, Caroline," he eventually added and her heart stopped, clenching harder and harder.

Caroline was too astonished to even think anything of it first, then she blinked for a moment as she desperately tried to keep a cool appearance, as if she was left unaffected by him. For years, she had wanted to hear those words from him and now he did. And what the hell was she supposed to do with that? She had waited a long time for him. It took her a long time before she could take an engagement with any man because she had hoped that maybe he would come back to her and she wouldn't be the one to hunt him down for once, but he hadn't, in the end she didn't got one single phone call, not a single letter or a postcard from him for years and Caroline finally got over him, slowly and difficulty, but she did. And now he got the nerve to come here and ask something like that?

"Get out, now," she dryly ordered him, hoping it would be enough for him to leave, knowing it would not.

"Caroline," he tried, but she wouldn't allow him to say one single more thing, not anymore.

"Get the hell out of here!" she yelled without worrying about Rebekah, Elena and Bonnie who could easily hear her if they were close enough.

She wanted to silence him, clean her mind and heart of the traces that his confession had left. She wouldn't let him play with her feelings again.

"No." he shook his head, hints of something like despair and determination coloring his voice "Not until you listen to me."

"I don't want to hear anything," she snapped. "You left. You left me! You left me alone while I was going through the worst time in my life- "

"You also left me!" he snapped back. "And you weren't the only one who suffered. I was suffering too. And I couldn't stay in this stupid town where there was nothing but bad memories for me. You could have seen that were not so infatuated with your fanciful vision of this town."

"My fanciful vision of this town?" Caroline knew that the best way to get Klaus out of the church and let her have her perfect wedding would be to put an end to the argument but the frustration and anger his words raised in her prevented her of all reasonable actions. "Who do you think you are to tell me so surely what was in my mind when I decided that I wouldn't leave my hometown and our sick mother to follow you to the other end of the country?"

"Your brother," he replied easily, "the one who was with you for the biggest part of your life and certainly knows you more than you know yourself." His radiant blue eyes shone with something dangerous as he walked toward her and caressed her cheek with a hand that left fire on her skin. She slapped his hand, causing him to chuckle. "I know that when you see this town you don't see the present but the past, you are attached to it because of your good memories that this town inspire you."

Anger boiling in her veins, Caroline found herself answering him with harder words than she had expected. "Yes, that's true! And I'm not stupid for that. I'm not stupid to try to see the best in situations where you can see only bad and leave with you - what did you say when you insulted my father? Oh yes, the tail between the legs. That's not a weakness but a strength and I will not apologize because you were too weak to-"

"I never meant such a thing!" Klaus objected, furious.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he again opened his eyes there was no anger but something akin respect in his eyes. She was brutally reminded of his mood swings. "Believe it or not, it's one of your qualities I admire," he sincerely complimented her, looking for a brief moment like the brother she had loved one day before he became the shadow of himself. "A shame, really," he mused dully, "that what drew me to you in the first place also drove us apart."

"You didn't even called, Klaus," Caroline declared quietly, deciding that to focus on another point would help her to ignore his statement that she decided to not analyze. It would open too many doors she didn't wanted open, would leave her in the grip of tumultuous ideas. _I must get over with that and live my life with Tyler._ "You gave me this ultimatum and when I decided not to conform to your desires you left."

"Not desires but needs, Caroline," he explained to her through clenched teeth. "You see the best of things and that's great, but not me, or anyone else in our family and we were all in need to get out of here. And I didn't called, but you didn't either."

She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. There was truth in these words, more than she wanted to admit. No matter how much she wanted to put all the blame on him, Caroline knew it would be unfair. A relationship worked both ways, and the two of them had ruined the relationship they once had.

"I can't leave Tyler, leave everything I ever knew for you Nik," she murmured finally, deciding she'd had enough of their power play, "You left and for four years since I did nothing but try to reinvent a new life for myself, a life without you. I love you, and I will always love you, but ... I can't."

He was about to say something but she stopped him, anything he might say would only make it more difficult. "I made my choice."

Seeing his pained expression Caroline had thought that Klaus would turn around and walk away, leaving her without a second glance, once again, and then he'd be gone missing until he was ready to reappear.

She hadn't expected his hands to tangle in her hair and his lips to crash on hers so hard that her protest sounds were lost in a mumble, hadn't envisaged that her own hands would grab his shoulder as she deepened the kiss and moaned his name, hadn't anticipate that her traitor body would melt into his embrace.

ooo

"Caroline Forbes, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and health, to love, honor and obey, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live?"

Bill nodded encouragingly and Tyler looked at her and smiled, his dark eyes loving as he waited for her to say the word of three letters. _Yes_ , she wanted to say but the words remained stuck in her throat. Her lips were still swollen from Klaus's kisses, her skin was burning everywhere he had touched her, and as she watched the man she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with Caroline found herself wanting to see another man instead.

When her silence continued an almost collective murmur traveled the congregation and the minister shifted uncomfortably, he hesitated but cleared his throat and repeated his question again, "Caroline Forbes, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and health, to love, honor and obey, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live?"

She wasn't listening anymore, her eyes were fixed on her brother who was standing near the door, far enough so that no one notice his presence, yet Matt followed her gaze and his eyes widened when he understood the reason of Caroline's hesitation, then jerked his head to his best friend who was still looking earnestly at Caroline, his eyes full of questions to which she couldn't answer.

When Bonnie had been knocking on her door to see what was taking so long, Caroline had panicked, naked and sweaty, still on Klaus's chest in a post-sexe happiness - if Bonnie had found them then it would have had the end, there would have been no turning back after that - but fortunately she had managed to get a grip on herself and had answered in her calmest voice possible that she was coming soon.

"Your choice," Klaus had said when it was time for Caroline to walk to the aisle. He had stood back and let her take her decision alone, giving her the power to decide if she wanted continue their relationship or to marry Tyler. The choice had been simple when he had not been looking at her, when she was able to put her actions on on behalf of the nostalgia of the moment and her heart still bleeding by their years of separation and aspiring to only a little comfort then, now it wasn't.

 _Go ways_ , she screamed inwardly, seeing Klaus still standing at the entrance of the church. She may happen to say those the simple word if he ceased to look at her this way; as if he had been plunged into the darkest of nights and saw the sunrise for the first time.

She would difficulty admit it, but it was exactly the same look that had been on her face when she had stood before the mirror and had seen her brother for the first time in four years.

During the time that Caroline had been with Tyler, she had never seen that look on his face, or hers.

She turned back to Tyler, a metallic taste in the mouth as she whispered, "I can't, I'm sorry."

Scandalous whispers broke out around her.


End file.
